July 30, 2007 - Leopard's UI: The Good and the Bad |
 Well, we've come a long way. It was a while ago that Leopard was announced, and it was over a year ago that we learned a bit about it's new features (e.g. Time Machine and Spaces). At WWDC, a few months ago, we saw Leopard's new user interface. There have been minor tweaks with each update (seeded only to developers and people who pirated the Leopard .iso file.) Well, I'm here to sort it all out.
The good, the bad, and the ugly.
 The Dock
Yeah, it's the same dock we all know and love. Apple just decided to make it even more superfluous by making it appear to be a table. Aside from the fact that there are issues with the table (the angles aren't quite right, making it look more like a trapezoid), there are still a few things I love and hate about it.
The Good: - The new text hovers. They now have a black bubble around them, which I find quite enjoyable.
The Bad: - It's a table. While I wasn't fond of the decision, Apple has recently tried to make it look more like a table, at least.
- The new separator. They got rid of it when they first showed us Leopard's new UI, but in a recent update they've restored it. It's not that I hate the separator (love it, actually), but they did a terrible job of designing it. A cross walk-esque divider? Come on. Stick with a simple line -- less is more.
 Tool Bars (Mail, Preview):
While not much has changed in the appearance of Mail's new tool bar, the look has been brought over to Preview's dying UI (way back from the first version of OS X).
The Good: - The buttons are white, which contrasts with the dark background a lot better than the original graphite blue.
The Bad: - The buttons are white. Call me picky, but I don't like it. I would have rather had a lighter blue. Still, that's just preference.
Speaking of preference...
The New Preferences Icon:
I don't have a pic here, but you can check it out at ThinkSecret. It's reminiscent of the iPhone system preferences icon, and needless to say, it owns.
 The Transparent Menu Bar:
The new menu bar has been very controversial amongst the Macintosh and Windows community for a single reason: it's transparent. (Remember who did that first?) But that's not the only reason I have gripes about it.
The Good: - They changed the Apple logo once again, this time being black. I like it.
The Bad: - It's a little too transparent, thus making it look strange with darker wallpaper backgrounds. Can you imagine having a jet black wallpaper? It'd be difficult to use the menu bar...sort of. I really hope they give us a preference to use this, though I doubt they will (that's typical Apple).
 The Colour Inconsistency (Menu Bar):
Check out the picture provided. The highlights are typical aqua blue, while the spotlight (and help search) boxes use a graphite-like colour. Not so hot. There's no good for this one, just bad.
The Massive Drop Shadows:
Leopard now gives you even larger drop shadows on the active window, and gives you slim to nothing on inactive ones.
The Good: - You can tell which window is active much better.
The Bad: - It's so big that it becomes obstructive. It's plain old ugly.
And those are just some of my gripes about Leopard's UI. I believe there are few changes for the better, but that's just me. Give me your thoughts on the comments!
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